Pro

I am not joking when I say that I thinked for hours about how do people find each other in 2025.

Currently, the world is in very weird state. People online are either using social video platforms or they are reading news or lurking in online forums in it's different shapes and forms.

Most chat platforms that I know had shut down and most alt social platforms are almost dead. Even Hackernews had started to see a lower amount of comments compared to previous years.

I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?

It remains unclear exactly what, precisely, the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is. The Trump administration first described this Elon Musk-led project as a non-governmental advisory entity, then presented it via Executive Order as a technology-focused office inside the White House (a repurposing of the U.S. Digital Service) and simultaneously a new governmental Temporary Organization.[1] Since then, Musk’s amorphous DOGE has sent detailees (some very young and inexperienced)[2] into various departments to seize reams of data or to embed themselves inside the agencies, worked to unilaterally dissolve key agencies, and facilitated the reckless slashing of staff throughout the government.[3] DOGE is carrying out its destructive rampage under the guise of targeting “inefficiencies,” but in reality Musk and DOGE have gutted essential government services that everyday people rely on, ignoring actual inefficiencies.[4]

The makeup and mandate of DOGE may be murky, but one thing is abundantly clear: Elon Musk has leveraged the project to ascend to power within the federal government.[5] President Trump and the administration have hemmed and hawed about Musk’s exact role while serving as a “special government employee,” but he quite plainly has been driving the DOGE agenda.[6]

Yet even while functioning as the most powerful actor in the federal government outside of the president, Musk has continued to lead multiple large companies that contract with and are regulated by federal agencies.

Reportedly, Musk is slated to soon take a step back from DOGE.[7] As he is potentially on his way out of the Trump administration, it is useful to mark the departments and agencies that his DOGE project has targeted during his tenure, and which overlap with his personal business interests.

Turkish authorities have again ramped up efforts to clamp down on online free expression. The latest escalation follows İmamoğlu’s March 19 detention and the ensuing nationwide anti-government protests. In such a climate, social media companies increasingly risk becoming an apparatus of state censorship.

The United States should not forcibly transfer migrants to Libya, where inhumane detention conditions are well-documented, including torture, ill-treatment, sexual assault, and unlawful killings, Human Rights Watch said today. Based on numerous media reports citing US officials, the Trump administration may be poised to imminently deport an unknown number of detained migrants to Libya. A US judge ruled that the government cannot immediately proceed with deporting people to Libya.

• Many asylum seekers detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the southern border who our researchers spoke with went days or weeks without the ability to make a phone call or have any contact with the outside world, including with family and legal counsel. Some asylum seekers reported that they could not make a single call the entire time they were in CBP custody.
• In CBP custody, immigration officers subjected asylum seekers to medical neglect, physical and psychological mistreatment, and unbearable living conditions that are especially traumatizing for children. Some children were detained separately from one or both parents for days or weeks at a time, were hungry and cold, lacked toys to play with, and/or went over a month barely seeing the sun.
• The U.S. government has unlawfully removed and expelled to the countries they fled or to third countries – without a legally required fear screening – families and adults fleeing Afghanistan, Armenia, Ghana, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and other countries, subjecting people to potential persecution via refoulement or chain refoulement, and violating U.S. and international refugee law. This has separated families indefinitely, including parents separated from minor children in the United States with no path to reunite. The administration’s removal and expulsion of nearly 500 migrants in February 2025 to Costa Rica and Panama led to further violations of their rights.
• While the administration is, in some instances, providing very limited screenings to asylum seekers about their fear of torture, the government routinely ignores and removes without any screening asylum seekers who directly communicate with immigration officers regarding their fear of return, and even where provided, these torture screenings are a farce by design.